We’re rounding up recent stories, from Temple University’s plan to address a $60 million deficit to the Senate’s proposal for a lower endowment tax increase.
0 2 minutes read
Tag: Universities
-
Australian universities fall in world rankings – Campus Review
Just under 70 per cent of Australian universities have dropped compared to last year in the latest QS World University Rankings released on Thursday.
Please login below to view content or subscribe now.
Membership Login
-
Universities Sue, Judge Blocks DOD’s Indirect Costs Cap
Johns Hopkins, Arizona State and Cornell Universities are among a coalition of 12 higher education institutions and three trade groups that filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense on Monday over the agency’s plan to cap universities’ indirect research cost rates at 15 percent.
While DOD secretary Pete Hegseth said in a memo last month that the policy is aimed at “accountability” and rooting out “waste,” the lawsuit argues that slashing indirect costs rates “will stop critical research in its tracks, lead to layoffs and cutbacks at universities across the country, badly undermine scientific research at United States universities, and erode our nation’s enviable status as a global leader in scientific research and innovation.”
On Tuesday, a federal judge in Boston issued a temporary restraining order, prohibiting the DOD from enacting the cap. A hearing in the case is set for July 2.
The litigation filed this week is the latest legal challenge universities and their advocates have mounted against the federal government’s attempts to cap the amount of money it gives universities for the indirect costs of conducting federally funded research. The National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy have all attempted to unilaterally enact similar caps, and federal judges have blocked those efforts for now.
For decades, universities have periodically negotiated with the federal government to calculate bespoke indirect cost reimbursement rates to pay for research costs that support multiple grant-funded projects, such as facilities maintenance, specialized equipment and administrative personnel. Universities factor those rates into their institutional budgets.
For example, Johns Hopkins and the DOD currently have in place a negotiated indirect cost rate of 55 percent. In 2024 JHU received $32 million from the DOD to cover indirect costs, according to the lawsuit. If the DOD’s plan moves forward, however, the university would lose $22 million.
-
Are universities too safe in their vice-chancellor recruitment?
Following publication of our joint GS/HEPI reporting into vice-chancellor recruitment and a vibrant LinkedIn debate, the complex dynamics shaping leadership in the sector have been brought to light. The conversation reveals a sector at a crossroads, wrestling with tradition and transformation.
Insider vs. Outsider: Who Should Lead?
Should vice-chancellors come from within academia or be recruited from other sectors? Out-of-sector candidates can bring a fresh perspective on leading change and challenging the status quo. Inside sector candidates offer deep cultural understanding, academic credibility, and governance experience. Many argue for a hybrid model and leaders who can bridge both worlds.
The CEO-ification of the VC Role
Today’s vice-chancellors are expected to be more than academic figureheads. They must be visionary strategists, financially astute operators, and empathetic people leaders. But, much more is needed to nurture leadership development pipelines with, perhaps, a reappraisal required of the very many leadership development programmes that exist already.
Diversity and Inclusion: Still a Distant Goal
Leadership in higher education remains homogenous. There remains a pressing need to broaden the pool, not just in terms of gender and ethnicity, but also professional and disciplinary backgrounds. Scepticism, especially in research-intensive institutions, about whether university leaders without academic credibility should lead universities persists. Valuing potential over pedigree could unlock untapped leadership talent.
Culture, Metrics, and Mission
Effective leadership in universities demands cultural intelligence and emotional literacy. Metrics like rankings and KPIs, while useful, often fail to capture the true impact of leadership. A more holistic, context-specific approach is needed; one that honours the civic and educational purpose of universities.
Collective Leadership and Cross-Sector Learning
Leadership should not and cannot rest on one individual. Distributed models featuring diverse senior teams and strategic co-leads are gaining traction. Embracing mobility between academia and industry can enrich leadership with fresh insights and mutual respect.
Join the Conversation: Upcoming Webinar
These themes and more will be explored in our upcoming webinar. Whether you’re an academic, policymaker, or sector professional, this is your chance to engage with thought leaders and shape the future of higher education leadership.
-
Leave to Achieve?: A new framework for universities to drive local social mobility
- By Dani Payne, Senior Researcher and Education Lead at the Social Market Foundation.
University remains the most effective pathway for disadvantaged individuals to achieve upward social mobility. Graduates earn more, are less likely to be unemployed, and report higher levels of health, happiness and civic engagement. Yet, despite this individual impact, higher education’s benefits often fail to translate into positive outcomes for local communities.
Recent research from the Sutton Trust ranked constituencies by social mobility. Most interesting is the bottom 20. More than half have at least one university within their immediate locality, and some have as many as 18 in their wider region. Essentially, having a university – or, indeed, many universities – in your region doesn’t guarantee improved local social mobility.
The need for a new social mobility framework
The government’s ‘opportunity mission’ is built on the principle that every child, in every community, should have a fair chance to succeed.
But rising costs, frozen maintenance support, demographic shifts and widening attainment gaps threaten progress made on access. Moreover, targets tend to be institution-specific, creating duplications and silos, and encouraging competition between providers. Selective universities continue to meet access targets by disproportionately recruiting disadvantaged pupils from high-attaining London boroughs, leaving local disadvantaged learners behind – even when world-class institutions are right on their doorstep.
We must broaden how we assess universities’ social mobility impact. To be able to understand when, why and how the benefits of an institution do or don’t reach into local communities, we must also consider their roles as major employers, civic actors and research hubs.
In our new report, Leave to Achieve?, we set out a new framework for how universities can conceptualise and measure their local social mobility contribution. The framework consists of four key pillars, underpinned by the need for regional collaboration and long-term planning.
1. Educational opportunities for local people
Access to higher education varies starkly by region: 27% of disadvantaged pupils in London hold an undergraduate degree by age 22, compared to just 10% in the South West.
Universities must work with local schools and colleges to raise attainment and create alternative entry pathways. They should be considering the extent to which they nurture and recruit talent locally, supporting pupils to progress and succeed. A place-based approach to widening participation, developed collaboratively with other regional providers, ensures local talent is not just nurtured but retained.
Some existing initiatives show promise. Durham Inspired North East Scholarships, Middlesex’s guaranteed offer scheme for local applicants, and the Warwick Scholar’s program providing financial, academic and practical support to local disadvantaged pupils, all show how targeted programs can work at a local level. However, articulation agreements with local further education providers are underutilised in England, and inconsistent contextual admissions policies limit impact.
2. Good jobs for local people
Universities are often the largest, or among the largest, employers in the local region. This is often cited to give the impression that they are ‘too big to fail’, particularly in the current financial context. But little has been done to look at the extent to which universities are providing good jobs to local people, and whether these are open to people from different socioeconomic backgrounds.
Academic roles provide an opportunity for social mobility – for those who can secure one. For someone from a lower socioeconomic background to become a lecturer, for example, they have almost certainly experienced upwards occupational social mobility, if not also absolute (income) social mobility, too. Similarly, professional service roles are often well paid and secure, with a reasonable pension, and working within a university comes with a certain amount of cultural and social prestige, too.
A university performing strongly in this area would be spearheading initiatives to support local people from disadvantaged backgrounds into some of these roles and supporting staff from lower socioeconomic backgrounds whilst they are there. Southampton’s staff social mobility network stands out here, specifically recognising and seeking to tackle barriers in recruitment, retention and career progress for those from working-class backgrounds.
3. Using research to address local needs
Research within institutions should address local needs and tackle inequalities, with outputs shared with local communities. Local residents should have opportunities to be involved in research and should understand why research carried out in their region is valuable.
There are excellent examples in this area, such as UWE Bristol’s ‘Engagement with Education‘ programme and London Metropolitan’s participatory knowledge exchange projects. But these remain examples of best – not yet standard – practice.
4. Civic actors: Lead locally, collaborate regionally
As civic institutions, universities must be more deeply integrated within their localities. Despite growing attention to civic engagement, activity is often fragmented and lacking an overarching strategy. Participation in local skills planning is inconsistent, and incentives to foster collaboration across providers are weak.
Great Manchester’s Civic Agreement is a great example of universities coming together with local leaders to work towards shared goals, recognising that collaboration is far more effective than competition, duplication, or silos. The South West Social Mobility Commission takes this a step further, bringing together all education providers (not just higher education), businesses, local leaders and third-sector organisations to promote better social mobility in the region.
A call to action
This framework is not a checklist, but a tool for reflection. We do not expect every institution to be a star performer in every pillar, but we do see value in measuring impact more holistically, across the full range of university activity.
Universities should ask themselves:
- Are we reaching local disadvantaged students?
- Are we getting local people into good jobs, and are these jobs available to those from all social class backgrounds?
- Is our research making a tangible difference to local challenges?
- Are we truly embedded as civic leaders in our region?
Only by addressing these questions can we begin to understand how – and when – the presence of a university does improve social mobility in its immediate communities. And only then can we ensure that local people no longer feel that they must leave in order to achieve.
-
What I learned from US universities – Campus Review
A pedestrian walks through Sproul Plaza at the University of California at Berkeley. Picture: Justin Sullivan
I have greatly benefited from an academic and leadership career spanning three continents over 40 years, and always viewed the US as a different stage, but one with much to learn from.
Please login below to view content or subscribe now.
Membership Login
-
Seeing universities as others see us
As the comparison between spending (per student) in Scottish and English universities comes into my argument later, Robert Burns’ famous lines from To a Louse seems a good place to start.
O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us
We are very familiar with how we see ourselves. Higher education is facing an intolerable financial squeeze.
In England the maximum fee which institutions are allowed to charge has only been been upgraded once, and only marginally, since the switch from state grants to tuition fees as the main source of funding for teaching 13 or more years ago. Its real value is barely 70 per cent of what it was then, although the Labour government has agreed to another – marginal – increase from 2025-26.
In Scotland, where Scottish domiciled students pay no fees, public expenditure on higher education has similarly failed to keep pace with inflation.
The substantial increase in full-fee paying international students, which many institutions relied on to fill the gap has ground to a halt because of less generous visa rules imposed as part of the backlash against large-scale immigration. The never-had-it-so-good years when growing your income was easy are over.
Red ink
Meanwhile costs have piled up. Higher education faces not only the standard inflationary pressures – higher wage, pension, energy, estates and other costs. As employers institutions must also pay higher rates of higher national insurance, without the possibility of passing on these extra costs (because of frozen fees and frowned-upon international recruitment). They may also face a levy on international students, although the Government has weakly promised that, if imposed, its proceeds would be redistributed within the system.
As a result an escalating number of institutions are reporting deficits. The talk is all of transformation, a new code for everything from sharing back-office services to full-blown institutional mergers. The prospect of outright institutional failures cannot be excluded. Dundee has already come close, although not perhaps as close as initial alarmist scenarios suggested. Scotland, of course, still has a funding council able to intervene in such situations. In England the Office for Students has only recently begun to focus on financial sustainability, so it is far from clear what the fate of an English Dundee might be.
That is our story – and we sticking to it. Rightly so, because it is almost entirely true, although it might help to convince others if it was not sometimes expressed in a spirit of aggrieved entitlement.
The other side
However, going back to Burns, we also need to think a bit more about how others see us. It is not simply that we are living in a post-truth world, so the marshalling of incontrovertible evidence while still necessary is now far from sufficient. This applies in particular to the toxically tangled issues of international students and immigration. No amount of evidence of the benefits of “soft power”, or economic multiplier effects, or of the way non-UK PhD students and post-docs have allowed us to punch above our weight in science and scholarship (same in the US, of course) will persuade those who fear they will have to live in, in the queasy but presumably deliberate phrase of the Prime Minister, “an island of strangers”.
But there is no need to go down the post-truth rabbit hole. There are perfectly rational and plausible ways in which others can see us that are radically different from the way we see ourselves, ways that might appeal to politicians set upon from all sides by multiple clamouring claims for increased state support and to their officials focused on delivery and free-lance advisers thrilled by difficult choices.
For example, these others might highlight the fact that spending per student on higher education, from all sources, is high by international standards. Among OECD countries the UK comes third, really second after the US because Luxembourg in the number-one spot is clearly a special case. In OECD’s book expenditure per student is substantially higher than in every other European country.
Of course, international comparisons are notoriously unreliable because of the difficulty of making like-for-like comparisons and disentangling higher from wider tertiary education. Even the apparently simpler task of just comparing public expenditure and excluding private expenditure is fraught, as the difficulty of categorising expenditure on student loans in England has demonstrated. But, with all these caveats, it is still fair to conclude that UK expenditure per student is towards the generous end of the international spectrum.
A counter ability
The counter-argument is that this higher expenditure pays dividends because there are so many UK institutions among the top universities in global rankings. But there are clearly other factors that explain our stand-out performance, although Switzerland actually has more highly graded institutions in proportion to its population. Also our global eminence is essentially rooted in research not teaching performance, which is only relevant to expenditure-per-student in terms of cross subsidy. A better counter-argument is that, because of shorter course lengths – three-year undergraduate degrees and one-year Masters – and high completion rates, expenditure per graduate is pretty average by international standards.
The same ‘others’, faced with evidence that funding per student in England is higher than in Scotland (spelt out, for example, in the recent report by London Economics for a Royal Society of Edinburgh conference), might not automatically conclude, as we do, that therefore funding in Scotland should be raised to the English level. On the contrary they might conclude that, because Scottish universities offer the same quality (whether measured by league tables, shares of competitively won research funding or external examiners’ and other reports on teaching) and the incidence of financial distress is not greater north of the Border, perhaps English funding levels may actually be (too?) generous…
Of course, all Anglo-Scottish unit funding comparisons are compromised by the fact that undergraduate degrees are three-years south and four-years north of the Border. Historically the younger age of university entrants in Scotland, the lower intensity of Highers and persistence of “democratic intellect” general degrees may have justified the different course lengths. But there is now no difference in entry ages, Highers and Advanced Highers are clearly equivalent to A levels (as English universities acknowledge in their admissions criteria) and ordinary degrees have almost disappeared.
Nor is it immediately obvious why, if an English system were to be adopted (which is not going to happen), Scottish graduates should be burdened with substantially more debt. The pressure for shorter, and less costly, degrees would clearly increase. But that is an argument for another time and place – and an educationally informed outcome could well be that English undergraduate degrees should also be four-year, which after all is the international standard in the rest of Europe, the US and almost everywhere else.
Shiny new buildings
The same ‘others’, faced with this prima facie evidence of “inefficiency”, might also express some concern about the less-than-prudent management of some – English – universities since the high-fees regime was introduced 13 years ago. Was it really reasonable to plan, as the cranes went up on campus, on the basis that the tuition fees windfall would last for ever? Or that in crabby post-Brexit Britain the very considerable expansion in the number of international students would not provoke a populist backlash?
They might even point back to historical precedents, and argue there is nothing fixed or sacred about any particular level of funding. Back in 1981 the former University Grants Committee bet on protecting the unit of resource – and lost. The student demand displaced by this vain attempt at protection flowed into the then polytechnics, creating the shape of higher education with which we are familiar today. When expansion really took off in the 1990s the unit of resource was further degraded, Better times only returned with the revival of public expenditure under Tony Blair and, crucially, Gordon Brown and, later, for a while, with high tuition fees.
Finally they might channel, in a much more moderate way of course, Donald Trump’s threat to use the money he is withdrawing from Harvard to fund “trade schools”. There are plenty of influential people who argue higher education, and specifically universities, has been expanded at the expense of further education. This may demonstrate how little they know and understand about what actually happens in universities today, in particular post-1992 universities. But they represent an important strand of political, if not public, opinion which is hardly sympathetic to increased funding for higher education.
To be clear, I am not endorsing this alternative viewpoint. My absolute preference is for a better funded higher education system, and also for increased public funding and a managed retreat from the narrowly transactional and crassly commodified regime imposed in England (do you really, Scotland, want to go there?). Nevertheless, surely it is important to remember Burns’ “giftie… to see oursels as ithers see us”. It can only only strengthen our arguments.
-
Universities should be architects of economic and social transformation
Britain’s universities stand at a critical juncture.
The traditional funding model faces unprecedented pressure as costs spiral and resources dwindle, while successive government policy reversals on international students and graduate visas have created a destabilising environment.
These converging forces threaten the very foundations of our higher education system.
Simultaneously, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is challenging universities to deliver more with less – driving economic growth and enhancing student outcomes amidst severe financial constraints. The message is unambiguous – transformation is no longer optional.
The uncomfortable reality is that with public funding constraints tightening and international income streams becoming increasingly unpredictable, universities can no longer sustain outdated operational models.
To survive and thrive in this challenging landscape, institutions must fundamentally reimagine their approach – aligning their educational offerings with national priorities and market needs, adopting innovative commercial service models, and leveraging emerging technologies at scale.
Pioneering a new paradigm
Aston University’s recent report, Pathways to Success, provides a compelling blueprint for institutional evolution in response to these pressures. By transforming into a more agile, resilient, and globally connected institution, Aston has prioritised both student success and tangible socio-economic impact.
This strategic pivot beyond traditional funding sources toward a partnership-driven approach has already generated over £1 billion for the regional and national economy, with ambitious plans to double this impact by 2030.
Today’s most effective universities function as anchor institutions within vibrant innovation ecosystems. The Birmingham Innovation Precinct exemplifies this approach, seamlessly integrating innovative research, commercial ventures, and community development.
Aston has expanded this concept with its “city within a city” model — a dynamic urban environment featuring public spaces, start-up accelerators, business incubators, community maker spaces, and comprehensive residential, health and recreational facilities.
This integrated ecosystem drives placemaking and productivity through collaborative place-based innovation.
Across Britain’s post-industrial cities, such innovation districts are becoming powerful engines of regional economic renewal. Aston’s focus on talent retention has resulted in approximately 70 per cent of graduates remaining in the West Midlands, providing essential high-level skills to local industries for the long run.
This retention significantly enhances economic resilience, while the university’s three-year support scheme after graduation ensures sustained impact through graduate success.
The university has constructed a comprehensive innovation ecosystem that accelerates research commercialisation, featuring the Aston Knowledge Transfer Partnership Unit, Aston Business Hub, Enterprise Hub, and Aston University Ventures, as well as a portfolio of partnered accelerators such as SPARK The Midlands Accelerator.
Collaborative efforts with other institutions through the Midlands Innovation consortium and its investment arm Midlands Mindforge, alongside large-scale research commercialisation projects funded by Research England and Innovate UK, further amplify this impact.
The results speak for themselves – KTP projects are projected to generate £266 million in pre-tax profit for partner companies and create 541 new jobs within three years, with participating companies achieving an average 1,107% return on investment.
The quadruple helix: A new framework for innovation
Forward-thinking institutions are increasingly adopting the “quadruple helix” model — an innovation framework that integrates academia, industry, government, and society.
This approach has transformed our stakeholder engagement, focusing efforts on health technology, net zero initiatives, digital and engineering technologies, and biological sciences — areas aligned with national priorities and offering substantial employment opportunities.
We demonstrate leadership in sustainability, on track to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2028, becoming the first university in the region to achieve this milestone, supported by a £35.5 million investment through the UK Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.
We have also secured funding to establish the first national Transdisciplinary Research Hub and Doctoral Training Centre, enabling and supporting decarbonisation projects across vast networks of businesses and healthcare providers throughout the West Midlands.
Those who fear that commercialisation threatens academic independence misinterpret this model. Robust governance frameworks protect intellectual integrity while facilitating meaningful partnerships that enhance rather than compromise research excellence through measurable impact.
However, widespread adoption of this approach faces significant obstacles, particularly outdated performance metrics that continue to prioritise publication counts and academic citations over student outcomes and real-world impact.
The forthcoming sector reforms must address these antiquated incentive structures if Britain is to maintain global economic competitiveness.
Building a sustainable innovation pipeline
The project-based funding model that dominates British research support creates chronic uncertainty, undermining long-term planning and investment.
What we urgently need are strategic, decade-long commitments that provide the stability necessary for substantial infrastructure development and deep industry collaboration.
The government’s forthcoming 10-year R&D budget must prioritise strengthening university-business collaboration. Only through such sustained investment can Britain cultivate the robust innovation pipeline essential for economic revitalisation.
Universities must simultaneously align their educational offerings with evolving market needs for advanced skills.
While the government’s focus on skill levels 1-5 is important, it remains insufficient. High-value sectors — artificial intelligence, advanced digital technologies, advanced manufacturing, and medical technology — require sophisticated capabilities that can only be effectively developed at scale through university-industry collaboration.
University-led programmes, co-designed with industry partners, can deliver intensive training in these critical domains through more agile, flexible, digitally enabled learning approaches.
The corporate challenge
We must confront an uncomfortable truth: the firewall between industry and education is rapidly vanishing. Global technology giants, such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, and Siemens, are already among the world’s largest training providers.
Before long, they will either embed their programmes inside universities or create rival institutions that funnel graduates directly into high-value jobs. Students will inevitably gravitate toward whichever pathway offers the strongest prospects for employability and rapid career progression.
The response must be proactive rather than defensive. Universities should forge strategic partnerships with businesses, policymakers, and private education providers to develop flexible, omni-channel learning models that integrate traditional campus experiences with industry-embedded learning opportunities, supported by sophisticated digital delivery platforms.
For centuries, British universities have been intellectual powerhouses shaping minds and advancing knowledge. But the future of our higher education system now depends on a fundamental mindset shift.
Institutions must become more commercially astute and globally connected, while remaining deeply rooted in their communities where their civic mission finds its most powerful expression.
We must embrace industry and community like never before. That means forging strategic partnerships, embracing commercial imperatives, and converting research and skills into measurable socio-economic benefits.
We can no longer rely solely on our storied academic traditions. If British universities are to thrive in the twenty-first century, they must transform and become active architects of economic and social transformation — or risk fading into obsolescence as relics of a bygone age.
-
Which Universities Spend the Most on Student Services
More colleges and universities are investing in support service offerings to increase student retention and graduation outcomes, but these interventions and offices come at a cost—one that is often subsidized by students.
A recently published analysis from Studocu of data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System finds that among four-year colleges and universities, most spent nearly $2,933 on academic supports and $4,828 on student services during the 2022–23 academic year. Across all institutions, the average expense per full-time equivalent student was $3,334 for student services and $4,198 for academic supports.
The group analyzed over 1,000 degree-granting institutions across the U.S. that enroll at least 101 undergraduates. Institutions ranged from large, primarily online institutions to small liberal arts colleges. Community colleges and technical colleges were not included in the study.
Academic support offerings were categorized as classroom-focused interventions, including tutoring centers, writing labs, academic advising and technology-enhanced learning tools. Student services included mental health counseling, career services, housing assistance and extracurricular programs, according to Studocu.
The biggest spenders on academic supports were, not surprisingly, wealthy Ivy League institutions. Yale University spent the most on academic supports ($1.8 billion) in the 2023 fiscal year, followed by the University of Pennsylvania ($1.1 billion) and Harvard University ($1 billion), each of which has an undergraduate population of less than 10,000.
Per student, Yale invested $225,000, Harvard spent $132,000 and Penn spent $105,707 on academic interventions.
Next in line were two public institutions: the University of Washington at Seattle, which spent $844 million for 30,000 undergraduates, or $28,133 per student, and the University of California, San Diego, which spent $844 million for 32,800 undergraduates, or roughly $25,732 per student.
Looking at student services, some of the institutions that spent the most were those with substantial online student bodies, including Grand Canyon University ($504 million), Southern New Hampshire University ($435 million), Liberty University ($289 million) and Arizona State University ($243 million).
But Yale spent the most per capita, investing $53,000 per student in nonacademic programs, followed by the California Institute of Technology and the U.S. Naval Academy, which spent $41,000 and $36,000 per student, respectively.
The analysis also revealed a positive correlation between dollars spent per student and graduation rates, which researchers said suggest well-funded support services provide meaningful benefits, particularly for students who might otherwise be at risk. However, the data does not capture the privileges of socioeconomic advantage that may supplement on-campus offerings, nor the likelihood of students to graduate regardless of support offerings due to selective admissions processes.
Students foot the bill: The high level of investment in student supports contrasts with the revenue the average student produces. The average public college received about $8,720 net revenue in tuition and fees per full-time-equivalent student in 2021, and the average private nonprofit received $23,900, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
A growing number of colleges and universities are embedding student service fees into tuition costs to fund support offerings, particularly health and wellness resources.
James Madison University, which spends around $1,620 per student on support services and $3,220 on academic resources, charges $5,662 in student fees, among the highest in the nation, according to a Sportico analysis. Nearly half ($2,362) of that fee goes directly to athletics funding, Sportico reported.
Harvard charges $3,676 annually for student services as part of the cost of attendance, a fraction of its total spend per student ($163,000). The Massachusetts Institute of Technology bills students $420 annually for student clubs and organization funding, as well as fitness activities—about 2 percent of the total dollars invested in student supports. Caltech charges $2,586 in fees, while the Naval Academy does not charge tuition.
The University of Pennsylvania lists $8,032 in fees in its estimated costs of attendance, but it’s unclear which expenses students are paying for with those fees.
Yale does not differentiate student fees in tuition prices, grouping lab, library and gymnasium costs into a student’s tuition package. Similarly, UCSD and UW do not have additional fees associated with the cost of attendance.
We bet your colleague would like this article, too. Send them this link to subscribe to our newsletter on Student Success.
-
Cut, Coerce, Control: What Trump Is Doing to U.S. Universities
The single biggest story in higher education for the first six months of this year, without a doubt, has been the Trump administration’s remarkable assault on science and universities. Arguably it’s the largest state-led assault on higher education institutions anywhere in the world since Mao and the cultural revolution.
Billions of dollars already legally allocated to institutions have been stripped from them mainly, but not exclusively through the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Billions more are going to be cut permanently through the budget process. Individual institutions in particular, Harvard, have been threatened with a variety of punishments if they do not obey the administration’s wishes on DEI and the curriculum. International students are being deported and the government has mooted a variety of policies that would see international numbers decline sharply. Low income students are looking at major cuts to both loans and grants. And we’re only, as of this recording, 134 days into this administration’s term, still 1,327 less to go.
With me today is a returning guest, Brendan Cantwell, from Michigan State University. He joined our show last fall to talk about what, based on his reading of the now notorious Project 2025, a Trump administration might do to higher education. And he was mostly right. Certainly he was more perspicacious than most actual higher education leaders, and so we thought just before we break for the summer, we’d invite him back on, not just to say, I told you so, but to help us understand both the strategies and tactics that the Trump administration is using and where the conflict might be headed next.
Just one note, we recorded this on Wednesday, the 28th of May. Some things such as the state of the Trump Harvard battle have changed since then, so keep that in mind as you listen.
And now, over to Brendan.
The World of Higher Education Podcast
Episode 3.34 | Cut, Coerce, Control: What Trump Is Doing to U.S. UniversitiesTranscript
Alex Usher (AU): Brendan, let’s start with the big picture. We’re four months—and a week—into Trump’s presidency, with just over three and a half years to go. Let me see if I’ve got this right.
He’s attacked the major granting agencies—NIH and NSF—and reduced direct funding to individual investigators, often on DEI grounds. He’s also cut overhead payments to universities. On top of that, he’s gone after specific institutions—Columbia, Harvard, and others—trying to pull their funding in ways that, frankly, seem completely illegal. The justification has ranged from their support for EDI to questionable claims of antisemitism or collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party.
We’ve now got a budget moving through Congress that, as I understand it, takes an axe to the student loan and grant system. And just this week, the government appears to be targeting international students—starting with Harvard, and more broadly by ordering embassies to conduct social media checks before issuing student visas. Am I missing anything?
Brendan Cantwell (BC): I’m not sure—there’s just been so much. It’s hard to keep up. There have been several executive orders, including ones targeting what we call Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. Others have touched on accreditation and a range of other topics.
The thing about this administration is that so much is happening so quickly, and these actions are in various stages of implementation. Some are being held up in court, and with others, it’s not even clear how they’re supposed to be implemented. The president makes a proclamation, but then there’s this uncertainty: what does it actually mean in practice?
Even for someone who spends a lot of time tracking this, it’s really difficult to stay on top of everything. But the overall thrust seems clear: the administration is using every mechanism it believes it controls—and some it probably doesn’t, legally—to pressure universities to align with the president’s agenda.
That’s not just my interpretation. It’s actually a common talking point from the administration: if universities want funding, they ought to support the president’s goals. More broadly, there’s a clear effort to weaken the sector—to undermine its role as an independent political and cultural force that could challenge the president or the party.
AU: I think Linda McMahon actually said exactly that earlier today—that universities are fine as long as they’re aligned with the president and the administration. So, I think you’ve done a good job explaining the through line across these various actions. But how coherent are those actions, really?
Is this a well-oiled plan, where they expected to be at this point by month three or four? Or is it more like the tariff policies, where the president just thinks of something new each day and rolls it out on a whim?
BC: I almost want to push back on the either/or framing. It’s definitely true that the president—and to some extent his top policy people and enforcers—are just throwing things at the wall. A lot of it is reactionary: this university defied me, so now I’m mad and I’m going to do something outrageous to show how much authority I have over them.
So yes, there’s an erratic, incoherent aspect to it. The rationale for their actions shifts constantly: one day it’s antisemitism, the next it’s about violating a Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action, then it’s about foreign collaboration. The justification just keeps changing.
But if you take a step back and look at the cumulative effect of what the administration is doing—getting universities to be more compliant, weakening their financial position, causing faculty and staff to lose their jobs—that broader objective is being advanced. And that’s exactly the kind of outcome that people like Chris Rufo, who claim to speak for the administration’s education policy, seem to be aiming for.
So no, it’s not tactically precise—it’s not some kind of meticulously calibrated battle plan. But the overall strategy of flooding the sector with challenges is definitely happening.
AU: I’ll come back to the strategy in a second, but let’s talk tactics. Do you get the sense that the Trump team is getting smarter in how it’s operating? That maybe they’ve been caught off guard a few times and are starting to adapt?
I’m just thinking about what’s happened in the last week. First, they attacked Harvard—saying, essentially, “we’re getting rid of all your international students.” Then the court pushes back. But right away, the administration has a response: the court says, “No, you can’t do that,” and they immediately pivot to pulling individual scholarships or research grants for international students—ones that hadn’t already been cut.
Then they go a step further, announcing cuts that apply not just to Harvard, but to all international students. Are they getting smarter, or not? I never had the sense this group was particularly good at learning, but maybe that’s changing?
BC: Are they getting smarter? I’m not sure. Are they more determined? Yes. And I think the voices inside the administration that might have constrained the president’s impulses back in 2016 to 2020—those are gone now. He’s unconstrained. He’s persistent. And he and his senior policy advisors genuinely believe in what they’re doing. They’re committed to the project and they’re looking for ways to push it forward.
Take the example you just mentioned: there’s an injunction—you can’t bar Harvard from enrolling international students, at least not before the courts weigh in. And the administration responds, “Fine. We’ll just create a new process to vet all international student visas.” So suddenly, they’re grinding the whole system to a halt.
They’re absolutely more willing now to use tactics that are difficult to block—tactics that escalate the situation every time someone pushes back. And they’re building out those tactics in a way that moves them closer to their goals.
That said, I don’t think their objectives are ever really precise or coherent. It’s more of a generalized impulse: they don’t like foreigners, they don’t like foreign students, they don’t like Harvard, they don’t like universities. So, they hit where it hurts—and this is one way to do it.
Now, is that smart? Maybe more effective, yes. I’m not sure it serves the country, or even the president’s long-term agenda, in any meaningful way. But it’s definitely happening.
AU: So let me turn to the Trump administration’s broader strategy. Last time you were on, we talked about Project 2025 and its implications for higher education. How closely do you think the White House’s actions over the past four months align with what was outlined in Project 2025? And by the way, this is your chance to say “I told you so.”
BC: Yeah, I love to say “I told you so”—it’s one of my character flaws.
A lot of what was in Project 2025 has now been implemented—or at least, versions of it have. Take the cap on indirect costs, for example. They’ve implemented a 15% cap, rather than the negotiated rates that were often quite a bit higher for individual campuses. Those rates sometimes raised eyebrows, especially among people unfamiliar with how the U.S. system works.
And even the rhetoric is the same. They’ve said, essentially, “Marxist foundations only pay 15%, so why should we subsidize Marxist stuff?” That language comes directly from Project 2025.
There are other examples, too. Many of the student loan reforms currently working their way through Congress have Project 2025 fingerprints on them. The executive order on DEI? Same thing. So yes, there are a lot of specific elements from the plan that are now showing up in policy.
And beyond the specifics, the overall spirit of Project 2025 is clearly visible in the administration’s posture toward higher education.
That said, there’s one key difference: Project 2025 envisioned a more active role for Congress and a more deliberative policymaking process than what we’re actually seeing. It assumed, at least implicitly, more checks on presidential power than the president has been willing to accept.
So, while many of Project 2025’s ideas have been implemented—some fully, some partially—how long they last is still an open question. And ironically, the actual execution by the administration is in many ways less constrained, and possibly less lawful, than what Project 2025 originally proposed. That’s my impression, at least—as a non-lawyer.
AU: We’ve been talking about the Trump administration. I want to shift now to the higher education sector. For most of February and part of March, the sector seemed… bewildered. Almost unable to process what was happening. It was like, “This must be a mistake—they can’t possibly mean that.”
And as a result, I think the response was pretty slow. When the administration went after Columbia, which was the first institutional target, many universities seemed to instinctively say, “Let’s stay quiet. Maybe we’ll be spared.”
You, and a few others, were pretty clear-eyed from the beginning about how this would unfold. Why didn’t university leaders see it coming? This feels like a colossal failure of imagination. What happened?
BC: Let me start by offering a partial defense of university leaders.
There are people like me—and others—who are pretty knowledgeable but also pessimistic. We say bad things are going to happen a lot, and often they don’t. During Trump’s first term, there was concern that a lot of his anti-higher-ed rhetoric would turn into policy. And in some ways, it did. But in many ways, it didn’t. Congress constrained him. The courts constrained him. Even people inside his administration held him back. And he also lost focus on higher ed.
So, I think university leaders had some reason to believe that the best strategy was to remain quiet, lobby Congress, and let the courts do their work. That approach worked last time, so it wasn’t irrational to assume it might work again. It just took them some time to adjust to the new reality.
Some of that delay is about individual cognitive response, which I’m not really qualified to speak to. But some of it is structural—university bureaucracies and associations take time to pivot. Shifting strategies isn’t easy.
So yes, it’s fair to say the sector was caught flat-footed. And yes, leaders should have had a better sense of what was coming. That’s a valid critique. But once they figured out what was happening, I think the sector showed a fair amount of agility. Associations started taking a more aggressive posture. ACE, for instance, became part of the resistance—which I wouldn’t have predicted would happen so quickly.
Universities are still trying to find their footing. And then you have Red State universities, which are really hemmed in by state legislatures. They’re facing a whole different set of challenges, apart from what’s coming out of the federal administration. Those institutions are in a very tough spot.
AU: What does it say about American higher education that Harvard has become ground zero for the resistance?
BC: Full credit to Harvard—absolutely.
Here’s my hedge: they had the benefit of seeing what happened to Columbia. That experience showed there was no good-faith negotiation to be had with this administration.
In some ways, it makes strategic sense for Trump to pick on Harvard. It’s not the most lovable institution. It’s a big, juicy target.
But at the same time, it’s also kind of foolish. Harvard has enormous resources—financial, social, institutional. They have more capacity to fight back than almost any other institution in the country.
I think they recognized what Columbia’s experience revealed: if you give in to this administration, institutional autonomy is gone—possibly for a long time.
If Harvard wants to preserve the American establishment—which it’s often accused of doing, by reproducing elite institutions and elite classes—then it has to resist Trump. That resistance is a condition of preserving the pre-Trump order.
So yes, it’s good and necessary that Harvard is doing this. But I wouldn’t interpret this as Harvard becoming some scrappy underdog street fighter. It’s simply one of the few institutions with the resources and standing to try to defend the old order.
AU: What about going forward, though? I mean, I hear more institutions—maybe not acting, but at least sounding like they understand they all have to hang together, or they’ll hang separately. But will they?
I mean, take the University of Michigan on DEI—they folded like Superman on laundry day. Part of that was probably about Santa Ono’s personal ambitions. But there are a lot of institutions, both public and private, that have already bent the knee at least once.
How do you come back from that? And can it really be done through the courts alone? Because right now, it’s all being held up by temporary restraining orders. And as you’ve said, that doesn’t provide clarity. Eventually, these cases are going to have to go up to the Supreme Court—where, incidentally, four or five justices are Harvard alums. Whatever else they believe, they might have some interest in preserving these institutions.
How do you see the resistance evolving over the next few months?
BC: I’d be disingenuous if I told you I know exactly how this is going to play out.
AU: Best guess.
BC: I think the strategy for the sector is to try to win where it can in the courts, and hope the administration abides by those rulings—which, honestly, is a real concern at this point.
And then also to behave like a school of fish: move together, so it becomes difficult to single out and take down any one institution.
The hope is that they can wait the president out—that the administration will shift its focus to something else, burn through its energy on attacks, and that most of the sector will remain intact enough to keep operating.
And then, when that moment comes, institutions can manage the fallout: the indirect consequences like how states deal with a recession if healthcare or food assistance burdens shift onto them, or the winding down of research operations as the pool of available grant funding shrinks.
I think the approach is: keep your head down, don’t explicitly cave, and hope the administration moves on. It’s probably the best available strategy right now.
But I don’t know if it will work. If the administration manages to keep its attention fixed on higher education and maintains this pace of attacks and cuts, then it’s going to be very difficult for large parts of the sector to emerge unscathed.
AU: You mentioned at the beginning of the interview an executive order related to accreditation. We haven’t talked about that yet, and I think some people see that as the sleeper issue—not necessarily for the big, wealthy private institutions, but for the vast majority of colleges and universities.
Changes to the U.S. accreditation system could have huge implications. What’s been happening on that front so far? What’s actually in that executive order, and what could these changes mean for institutional autonomy and academic freedom?
BC: Most of the executive orders from this administration, it’s not exactly clear what it does. It directs the Secretary of Education—who, by the way, has also been tasked with dismantling the Department of Education, so there’s that contradiction to hold in your mind.
AU: But she’s still the Secretary. I saw her today.
BC: Yes, she’s still there.
So, this order directs her to collaborate with new accreditors and to open up competition in accreditation. The stated goal is to “foster innovation” and “rein in the accreditation cartel”—that’s the language they use. They frame current accreditors as promoters of Marxist, DEI, anti-Semitic, or otherwise ideologically objectionable agendas. It’s a jumble of terms, but it signals their intent.
There are really two key elements here. First, increasing competition among accreditors. That means recognizing accreditors that wouldn’t have been approved under a Democratic administration—and maybe not even under many Republican ones. These would be organizations willing to give the stamp of approval to short-term or for-profit programs that don’t meet U.S. or international best practices for educational quality. If I were being snarky, I’d call them scammer programs.
Second, they could use accreditation as a way to impose standards that align with the president’s political agenda. For example, they might require changes to how campuses regulate student conduct, admissions policies, or even faculty hiring practices. They could try to use accreditation to reach into curriculum—mandating, say, a general education requirement focused on Western Civilization or other ideologically favored content.
Accreditation is the clearest vehicle they have to influence what’s taught and how institutions operate. But these kinds of changes take time and require more methodical planning—something this administration has been less consistent about, as we’ve discussed.
So, we’ll see what happens. But it’s definitely something to keep an eye on over the next couple of years. If universities are already weakened by all the other pressures—funding cuts, legal battles, political attacks—they may be less able to resist a fundamental restructuring of the accreditation system.
AU: The sector’s had a lot thrown at it over the last four months. But looking ahead—have we seen the end of all this sabotage innovation, so to speak? Is there more coming? We talked about Project 2025 a little earlier. Is there anything in there that hasn’t been used against the sector yet? What should we be even more worried about?
BC: I’m not sure there’s any one Project 2025 policy I’d point to and say, “watch out for that specifically.” But a couple of things are worth keeping an eye on.
One would be if the administration attempts to block institutions—or even groups of institutions, or the entire country—from accessing federal student financial aid. That’s Title IV under the Higher Education Act. If they were to go after Title IV the same way they’ve unilaterally blocked access to research grants or are now targeting international students, that would be hugely disruptive. It’s a big, coercive lever. They could do a lot of damage with it.
The other thing to watch is the relationship between federal and state policy. We’re already seeing red states passing legislation that mirrors or reinforces the Trump administration’s higher ed agenda. Utah, for example, just passed a bill where institutions face a big cut to their appropriations—unless they agree to evaluate and cut programs the state deems nonessential.
And even individual boards of governors, particularly in Republican-dominated states, are taking it upon themselves to implement Trump-aligned policies. I think we might be seeing that at the University of North Carolina, for instance, where no one outside of the health sciences has received tenure in the past year. We don’t know exactly what’s going on, but it certainly looks like the board is using its technical authority to enact the administration’s broader political agenda. So those are the kinds of developments to watch.
AU: Brendan, best of luck—and thanks for joining us.
BC: Thanks very much, Alex. Always a pleasure to be here.
AU: That just leaves me to thank our excellent producers—Tiffany MacLennan and Sam Pufek—and you, our viewers, listeners, and readers, for joining us. If you have any questions or comments about today’s podcast, or suggestions for future episodes, don’t hesitate to reach out at [email protected]. Run—don’t walk—to our YouTube page and subscribe. That way, you’ll never miss an episode of The World of Higher Education Podcast. Join us next week for what will be our final episode before the summer break. Our special guest? Me. Tiffany will be turning the tables and peppering me with questions about higher education in Canada and internationally during the first half of 2025. I’ll do my best to make it all sound coherent. Bye for now.
*This podcast transcript was generated using an AI transcription service with limited editing. Please forgive any errors made through this service. Please note, the views and opinions expressed in each episode are those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast host and team, or our sponsors.
This episode is sponsored by KnowMeQ. ArchieCPL is the first AI-enabled tool that massively streamlines credit for prior learning evaluation. Toronto based KnowMeQ makes ethical AI tools that boost and bottom line, achieving new efficiencies in higher ed and workforce upskilling.